


This is.

by scxlias



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Nightmares, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 08:24:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10330325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scxlias/pseuds/scxlias
Summary: It’s a cold night in October when one of the worst nightmares hits Andrew. He could’ve sworn they were getting at least a little better, that he was used to the weight of someone else in the bed with him, that he liked having Neil there to fall asleep with, that he knew he was safe with someone else there, no one was going to hurt him, least of all Neil.Apparently, his subconscious doesn’t fucking care.





	

**Author's Note:**

> watch out for mentions of Andrew's past

Andrew has nightmares.

It’s not a secret. 

They’ve all been around Andrew enough to notice the way that he tenses sometimes and curls his hands into his own shirt, his breath coming out in harsh gasps until he jolts awake or Nicky or Neil notice and do something about it. 

It’s not a secret, but no one talks about it. 

Ever. 

It’s just a fact. 

Andrew knows that Neil knows what they’re about, or that he can at least infer. He knows Nicky and Aaron and Kevin can figure it out too. 

He’s quietly glad that no one brings it up, but he’d never say that outloud. 

~

It’s a cold night in October when one of the worst nightmares hits Andrew. He could’ve sworn they were getting at least a little better, that he was used to the weight of someone else in the bed with him, that he liked having Neil there to fall asleep with, that he knew he was safe with someone else there, no one was going to hurt him, least of all Neil. 

Apparently, his subconscious doesn’t fucking care.

His eidetic memory means that his dreams are usually memories that he doesn’t particularly care to revisit, but that his mind unhelpfully drags up anyway, just to make him miserable. But sometimes.

Sometimes.

They’re not memories. 

Or they are, but they’re not right. They’re not right and Andrew can tell but that doesn’t make him any less terrified. 

Tonight, his mind apparently wants to make him feel absolutely awful.

It’s a memory Andrew is intimately familiar with, and one he’d forget in an instant if he could.

Only this time, it’s not Drake stalking into the room and locking the door behind him, it’s Neil. It’s not Drake’s twisted smile making Andrew’s stomach twist, it’s the cold smile Neil says reminds him too much of his father to make him comfortable. It’s not Drake grabbing his wrists and shoving him down, it’s Neil. 

It’s Neil.

Andrew screams. 

He screams and thrashes and tries to kick him away and tries and fails to fight down the panic in his chest, because this isn’t right. Neil would never hurt him like this. He always asked permission for everything, never touched Andrew anywhere but where Andrew said he could, always stopped when Andrew said no, sometimes even before he said no, if he even so much as thought that Andrew wasn’t one hundred percent into what he was doing. This isn’t right. Neil isn’t like this, Neil wouldn’t do this. He’d promised. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Andrew registered that this was wrong, that his subconscious was playing tricks on him, placing Neil into his worst memories just to fuck with him, but that logical part is completely overridden by the panic clawing its way into his throat, suffocating him. 

After a while, he gives up. 

He doesn’t scream. 

He doesn’t struggle. 

He hardly feels anything except the hands pinning his wrists to the bed.

He tastes blood. 

He can’t hear anything except the deafening ringing in his ears, broken occasionally by someone calling his name. 

Neil.

Neil’s calling his name. 

Andrew wants to cry, because Neil actually sounds  _ concerned _ even with what is happening right now. 

He sounds concerned when he’s holding Andrew down and calling, “Andrew, Andrew, come on.” 

Andrew struggles weakly again and then hears, “Andrew,  _ wake the fuck up _ .” 

He jerks violently awake then, trying to move his arms and finding that they actually are pinned above his head, he wasn’t just dreaming that. There’s blood in his mouth. He bit his tongue? A brief spike of panic rips through him before he’s fully awake, and he lashes out, using his legs instead of his hands. His knee makes contact with something, and then his foot does too, and his arms are free and he sits up abruptly, scrambling for the corner, eyes wild as he searches for his attacker, only to find Neil, doubled over on the ground clutching his face. 

“What the fuck are you doing Josten?” Andrew bites out, voice harsh from sleep and panic. For a moment, he can’t remember what he was dreaming of. 

Neil doesn’t move, barely looks up at Andrew. “You woke me up cause you having a nightmare. You didn’t wake up when I touched you though, and you started digging into your arms, so I stopped you. Then you screamed and woke up and kicked me in the face.” Neil’s voice sounds strained and Andrew realizes that he kneed Neil in the stomach and promptly remembers what his dream was about. 

“Get the fuck out of my sight,” Andrew rasps, the panic rising in his throat again. He shoves it back down roughly and glares at Neil. “I said get out!”

Neil doesn’t question him and hurries to comply, failing to close the door behind him in his rush. Andrew counts out five seconds before he stands, slamming the door shut and his fist into the door as soon as it latches. He lets out a frustrated noise and gives himself exactly five minutes to be upset, his hands curled into fists, forearms pressed to the door above his head. 

He hasn’t had a nightmare that bad in years, had trained himself to wake up at even the slightest touch. The fact that it had taken Neil so long to wake him scares him, not that he’d ever admit it. He’s glad Erik’s in the country this weekend so Nicky’s  gone and Kevin fell asleep watching old games in Matt and Aaron’s room.

He hates that even Neil saw this side of him, hates that he’d been seen  _ vulnerable _ . He’s unbreakable, unmovable, invulnerable. He’s not this. 

He’s not this scared kid. 

He hasn’t been in a long time. 

But seeing Neil in Drake’s place, feeling Neil hold him down like that, even though he knew it wasn’t real, it wasn’t actually happening, he was fine, he is fine, he is safe, Neil would never hurt him, he knows Neil would never hurt him,  he was still so scared. 

He’d never, ever admit it, but he was so scared. 

He lets himself have exactly five minutes to feel that way, to panic and worry and feel out  of control and then he stops. 

He reels it back in and stops freaking out. 

He gives himself exactly fifteen minutes to collect himself again.

He takes a step back and a breath in and he stops. 

He breathes out and opens the door. 

Neil is sitting in a beanbag, a game on the TV on mute. He’s staring at the ground, a hand hovering over the bruise blooming underneath the circular scars on his cheek like he can’t quite believe what happened. He only looks up when Andrew kicks the beanbag, immediately standing and taking a few steps away, making sure his hands are visible. Andrew appreciates the gesture, but he closes the distance between them anyway, taking one of Neil’s hands and turning it over. He tightens his grip to remind himself that this is real. This is the real Neil, the one with scars on his arms and marred skin on his face and concern in his eyes, face not twisted by a cold smile. This is the Neil he knows. 

This is the Neil who isn’t a hallucination and isn’t a pipe dream and isn’t a side effect of the drugs. 

This Neil is not a nightmare.

This is real. 

This  _ is  _  a this. 

“What did I do? Was it the touching? I just didn’t want you to keep hurting yourself,” Neil says, voice barely above a whisper. “I won’t do it again.” 

Andrew claps a hand over Neil’s mouth to shut him up, tracing the scars on his arm with the thumb of his other hand. 

The Neil in his dream hadn’t been scarred. 

Seeing the puckered marks on this Neil, his Neil, the real one, is more reassuring than it should be. 

Andrew lets out a sigh and drops his head, leaning slowly toward Neil until Neil breathes out a quiet ‘yes’. His head connects with Neil’s chest then, Andrew’s breath coming easier, the panic finally subsiding at the contact. 

He feels Neil’s fingers ghost over his arms and hears a soft “Yes or no?” as the touch stops before it even becomes a real touch. 

Andrew nods and mutters out a ‘yes’ and Neil’s hands come to rest on Andrew’s arms, a firm pressure that keeps Andrew grounded in the moment. 

They stand there for what feels like hours,

“I texted Dan. The girls said I can stay in their room tonight, I just wanted to make sure you were okay before I left.”

Andrew’s fingers curl into Neil’s shirt then, and when they do, Neil can feel his nails scraping over the scars on his stomach. He hisses at the sensation, but says nothing, instead letting Andrew pull him a fraction of an inch closer. 

“No,” Andrew whispers, and Neil drops his hands immediately. “ _ No _ ,” Andrew stresses and Neil takes a step back, looking down at him in confusion. Andrew glowers at the loss of contact, but Neil steps entirely away from him anyway, hands folded behind his back. 

“You’ve gotta talk to me. I don’t want to make anything worse,” Neil says, tapping two fingers to his own head, concern evident in his eyes. 

Andrew shakes his head and reaches for Neil’s shirt again, catching the hem and tugging him closer. Neil stubbornly refuses to move further than two small steps. Andrew sighs and tightens his grasp on Neils shirt. His hands are shaking. Neil doesn’t comment. 

“Don’t go,” Andrew croaks out, and Neil freezes, hands hovering a few inches away from Andrew’s sides, unsure of what to do. 

Andrew sounds… defeated. 

He’s never sounded like this before. 

It makes Neil’s stomach turn. 

He keeps his voice quiet as he asks, “What do you need?”, voice laced with concern,

Andrew takes in a deep shuddering breath, and doesn’t look up at Neil. “It was you.” He steps back then and when Neil’s hand brushes his arm on the way, he snarls. “Don’t.” 

Neil doesn’t move. 

He shakes his head in confusion and drops his hands to his sides and furrows his brow and just stands there. 

It takes Andrew a while before he speaks again. 

“It was you.” Neil opens his mouth and Andrew makes a noise that cuts him off before he can utter a word. “The nightmare. It was supposed to be Drake,” he falters over the name but forces himself to keep going. “It was supposed to be him but it was you instead and I couldn’t wake up.” The laugh he lets out is just this side of hysterical. “Haven’t had one that bad in a while. Huh. You know, you didn’t have scars. Never thought I’d want to see those on your face. But I know you’re you now.”

Neil just stares, mouth opening and closing dumbly for a moment. 

“Jesus, Andrew,” he mutters, breathless. “That’s… You know I’d never… Even if I say it’s always yes, I know that it’s not always yes with you. I know that. I’d never try to….” Neil trails off, unsure of what he’s trying to say and not wanting to upset Andrew further if he trips over his words just a little too much. 

Andrew just studies him for a moment, glances over Neil’s bare arms, covered in ugly scars, the marred skin on his face, the circle scars too perfectly round, lines too straight to be an accident. 

He finds his gaze fixed on the spot where a black four used to stain Neil’s skin. Slowly, painfully slowly, Andrew reaches up towards Neil’s face. 

“Yes or no?”

“Yes. Always yes, Andrew.”

He puts his fingers to Neil’s scarred face, pink skin smooth under his touch, and the tension in his chest eases.

“Andrew?” 

“Shut up.” 

Neil does. 

“Come back to bed.” Neil doesn’t say please, but Andrew can hear the plea in his voice. 

He nods once and leans into Neil’s space. 

“Yes or no?”

“Yes,” Neil breathes. 

Andrew kisses him, and he’s home. He’s safe. 

He leads Neil back to bed.

_ This is not nothing _ , he thinks, and sleep claims him again, undisturbed this time.

**Author's Note:**

> scream into the void @ _[scxlias](http://scxlias.tumblr.com/)_


End file.
